Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown (31 page)

Another legendary filmmaker and philanthropist, Sir Run Run Shaw. His use of ginseng root tea was thought to have helped keep him going to the ripe age of 106.

Greg Peck once told me about a meeting he had with the producer Run Run Shaw in Hong Kong. Shaw was a tremendously successful film mogul and philanthropist and founded Shaw Brothers Studios, which became one of
the best-known film production companies in Hong Kong. Greg had gone over to meet with the great man and see his studio, where they shot all the Kung Fu and karate movies that were so popular all over the Far East. Anyhow, they were sitting in Run Run Shaw’s office and Shaw brought out a beautiful, highly polished mahogany box, lined with red velvet, and lying inside was a large, knobbly ginseng root. Run Run Shaw told Greg that this particular piece of ginseng was from the mountains of mainland China, where mountaineers would hunt down the roots and dig them out with small spoons in order to preserve the root intact.

I should add that at this stage, Run Run Shaw was in his early seventies, incredibly rich and very charming.

‘Gregory, I take three capsules of this every morning, and three more at night before I go to bed. I have a man grind this root up for me into a powder and I wash it down with a tot of Scotch,’ declared the producer. ‘And I can still do everything – I mean
everything
– that I could when I was thirty,’ he added, leaving Greg in no doubt as to what he meant.

Seeing how well ginseng worked at keeping Run Run Shaw on top form, dear Greg decided that it might just work for his old friend Niv, who had been ailing rather markedly the last time they had met. He duly sent some along to David Niven, but heard shortly after that Niv’s doctors, already worried about him, were monitoring all his intake and wouldn’t allow him to take it.

There’s got to be something in it, though. I remembered that story when I read about Run Run Shaw’s death in January 2014 – at the tender age of 106.

Of course, films featuring would-be heroic actors such as I only come about because of the ingenuity, negotiating and charming skills of producers. One who had all that in bucket loads was Elliott Kastner, who was most definitely one of the largest larger-than-life characters in the film business. He had a damn good eye for a commercial story, but then again he did start his career as a literary agent, so he ought to have known a good book when he read one.

I only made one film with Elliott,
North Sea Hijack
, but knew him socially and from around Pinewood, where he kept an office for most of his working life. When he was in residence you’d know because there was no mistaking his voice booming down the corridor when he was on the phone, having rather heated conversations with financiers and executives, which often ended with Elliott lovingly telling them where to ‘shove it’.

I think it’s fair to say that Elliott was in litigation for most of his life with one person or another, but he also made more films than anyone else I know.

He was always on the lookout for well-heeled people in his never-ending pursuit of what he’d call the ‘war chest’, and the story goes that whenever Elliott arrived in LA he would stay at a well-known and rather luxurious hotel. On arrival, he would slip a very handsome gratuity to the reservations manager and ask if there were any residents from Texas in the large suites. He’d then go to their rooms, knock on the door and introduce himself. Over the years, Elliott had worked out that they were pretty likely to be wealthy oil executives and he’d always have a script to tell them about and an exciting opportunity for them to be in movies.

A couple of years before we started shooting
North Sea
Hijack
, Elliott had cast Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson in a movie called
The Missouri Breaks
.

Brando was a great believer in ‘the method’ school of acting, so launched himself right into his characters, always trying to capture the character’s psychological motivation and emotions. In this case he did so by catching grasshoppers in his downtime and eating a live frog. If that wasn’t bizarre enough, the Western saw Brando speaking in an over-the-top Irish accent, and wearing a dress too.

When he was trying to pull the finance for the film together, Elliott heard that Jack Nicholson had just moved into a house near Marlon Brando’s, and so he courted them both to star. He knew if both men agreed then the finance was assured. Brando was at the peak of his powers and Elliott happily yielded to demands both large and small in order to secure him, including hiring Arthur Penn to direct. But despite satisfying their every demand, neither Brando nor Nicholson would quite commit. So Elliott did the only thing he could – he resorted to subterfuge, telling both of them that the other
had
agreed a deal. Not long after that they both happily signed on the dotted line! That was Elliott.

Postscript

A
FEW YEARS AGO
,
WITH MY
B
RITISH PASSPORT COMING UP FOR
renewal, I thought the easiest and quickest way of picking up a replacement was to book a one-day appointment at the Passport Office in London, where the plan was that I would fill in a form, bring a couple of photos and return after lunch to pick up my new document.

Upon handing my duly completed renewal paperwork to the man behind the counter, he tutted and said my signature was ‘outside the box’ and told me I’d need to go and fill in another complete form. About ten minutes later I returned, and ensured my signature was now well and truly within the appointed box.

‘Are these photos recent ones?’ he asked as I handed them over.

‘Yes, I had them taken a week ago,’ I replied. ‘In Switzerland.’

‘What?’

‘A week ago ...’ I repeated.

‘You said Switzerland?’ he asked, as he dropped them back on the desk. ‘I’m afraid we can’t accept these, as they are not on approved UK photographic paper.’

I was somewhat taken aback, but my interrogator was not someone I felt I could be in any way glib with, so, looking forlorn, I asked what I could do.

‘Down that corridor,’ he pointed. ‘Turn left and follow it
to the end and you’ll see a photo machine there. It costs £5 and will print you four. When you have them, come back.’

After what seemed like a three-mile hike, I managed to obtain the photos, though obviously by then I wasn’t in a terribly good mood as I look most perturbed in them. I dropped them back to my friend. He read through the form again, looked at the photos … ‘I’m sorry, but this is a different person.’

‘Pardon?’ I asked.

‘On your current passport you are named as
Mr
Roger Moore, but now you want it to be in the name of
Sir
Roger Moore – it’s different.’

‘Yes, I’ve been knighted in the meantime.’

‘Ah,’ he replied. ‘Do you have any proof of that?’

‘Proof?! What would you like?’ I seethed through clenched teeth. ‘A letter from the Queen?’

With that, he finished off the paperwork and matter-of-factly told me to report back to the office around the corner in three hours.

Following lunch and a much-needed glass of wine, I reported to what I can only really describe as a hatch in a wall, where I rang the bell and waited for said hatch to open.

‘Name?’ the little man said.

‘Roger Moore.’

‘Date of birth?’

‘14 October 1927.’

‘Got any ID on you?’

It’s at times like this I’m incredibly tempted to say ‘Do you know who I am?’ (Or as in the case of when I was in New York for an interview promoting my first book, and the door security man [who had my name on his list] said,
‘I can’t let you in without photo ID’, I slapped my book down in front of him and said, ‘There! That’s me and that’s my name,’ and walked through past him.) On this occasion, though, I think I produced either my driving licence or credit card.

He studied my ID very carefully and held it up against my passport. ‘Ah, yes, that’s fine.’

I took my passport and just as I was about to turn and exit, the little man called out, ‘Excuse me!’

I returned to his hatch, and he smiled widely, ‘I’ve always been a big fan, Sir Roger. Any chance of an autograph?’

I tell you this small anecdote to highlight the fact that whatever one’s fame, whatever one has ‘accomplished’, whoever one has met and mingled with, wherever one has travelled, there are always times in life that one is brought back to earth with a bump. It’s true what they say: ‘You can take the boy out of south London, but you can’t take south London out of the boy. This particular south London boy has always been very lucky. I’ve worked with the best and travelled the world, made friends with the great and the good and continue to live life to the full – but it’s incidents like the one above that (eventually) make me smile and remember my roots.

Kristina and I visit some of the Kosovar refugees in FYR Macedonia in 1999.

On our first visit to Kazakhstan, Kristina and I met children with disabilities and were continually inspired.

In Closing ...

A
CTING INTERESTS
(
AND ATTEMPTS
)
ASIDE
, I
AM
,
OF COURSE
, still primarily kept busy as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and I’m always delighted when my passion for UNICEF rubs off on those around me. One of my more recent fundraising projects is
Giving Tales
, which came about when my son Christian and his business partner Klaus Lovgreen discussed the idea of producing an interactive, animated version of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales.
Giving Tales
is an app available on iPhones, iPads etc (although other tablet devices are available, of course …), and the plan is for a celebrity to read a Hans Christian Andersen story and, as an ever-continuing project, every year the catalogue is set to grow, generating an on-going royalty for UNICEF. I thought it sounded like a terrific project.

I called on a few friends to see if they might lend their tonsils, and the first to jump on board was the lovely Ewan McGregor. Soon afterwards, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, Joan Collins and Michael Caine all joined me in recording tales. I’ll keep you posted!